Editing Saka (section)

==== Shule Kingdom ====
{{Main|Shule Kingdom}}
Much like the neighboring people of the Kingdom of Khotan, the people of [[Kashgar]], the capital of Shule, spoke Saka, one of the [[Eastern Iranian languages]].<ref>Xavier Tremblay, "The Spread of Buddhism in Serindia: Buddhism Among Iranians, Tocharians and Turks before the 13th Century", in ''The Spread of Buddhism'', eds Ann Heirman and Stephan Peter Bumbacker, Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, 2007, p. 77.</ref> According to the ''[[Book of Han]]'', the Saka split and formed several states in the region. These Saka states may include two states to the northwest of Kashgar, [[Tumshuq]] to its northeast, and [[Tashkurgan Town|Tushkurgan]] south in the Pamirs.<ref name="DaniLitvinsky1996" /> Kashgar also conquered other states such as [[Yarkand]] and [[Kucha]] during the Han dynasty, but in its later history, Kashgar was controlled by various empires, including [[Tang dynasty|Tang]] China,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/yarkand |title=YARKAND |last=Lurje |first=Pavel |author-link= |date=2009 |website=[[Encyclopædia Iranica]] |quote=The territory of Yārkand is for the first time mentioned in the Hanshu (1st century BCE), under the name Shache (Old Chinese, approximately, {{transliteration|och|*s³a(j)-ka)}}, which is probably related to the name of the Iranian Saka tribes. }}</ref><ref>Whitfield 2004, p. 47.</ref><ref name="wechsler">Wechsler, Howard J.; Twitchett, Dennis C. (1979). Denis C. Twitchett; John K. Fairbank, eds. The Cambridge History of China, Volume 3: Sui and T'ang China, 589–906, Part I. Cambridge University Press. pp. 225–228. {{ISBN|978-0-521-21446-9}}.</ref> before it became part of the Turkic [[Kara-Khanid Khanate]] in the 10th century. In the 11th century, according to [[Mahmud al-Kashgari]], some non-Turkic languages like Kanchaki and [[Sogdian language|Sogdian]] were still used in some areas in the vicinity of Kashgar,<ref name="LeviSela2010 2">{{cite book |author1=Scott Cameron Levi|first2=Ron|last2=Sela|title=Islamic Central Asia: An Anthology of Historical Sources|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SAX5ohFkcVgC&pg=PA72 |year=2010|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-0-253-35385-6|pages=72–}}</ref> and Kanchaki is thought to belong to the Saka language group.<ref name="DaniLitvinsky1996">{{cite book|author1=Ahmad Hasan Dani|author2=B. A. Litvinsky|author3=Unesco|title=History of Civilizations of Central Asia: The crossroads of civilizations, A.D. 250 to 750|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=883OZBe2sMYC&pg=PA283|year=1996 |publisher=UNESCO|isbn=978-92-3-103211-0|pages=283–}}</ref> It is believed that the Tarim Basin was linguistically Turkified before the 11th century ended.<ref name="Akiner2013">{{cite book|author=Akiner|title=Cultural Change & Continuity In|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=udjWAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA71|date=28 October 2013 |publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-15034-0|pages=71–}}</ref>